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Google operates an exchange for a digital asset, is a major vendor/trader of said asset on that exchange and operates an algorithmic trading platform to enable

Google operates an exchange for a digital asset, is a major vendor/trader of said asset on that exchange and operates an algorithmic trading platform to enable people to buy and sell on that exchange. On top of that the algorithmic trades are a "black box" with no audit trail, and no public insight into how it operates. If that sounds familiar, think illegal crypto exchanges... Obviously "ads" are not "securities", but when you take that along with the monopolistic position Google have between businesses and consumers online, the status quo is not sustainable. The EU is absolutely right to suggest breaking Google up, it should not be allowed to operate as an exchange, broker-dealer, and clearing agency. Google have systematically taken control away from advertisers over the last ten years, it used to be that we would have deep control and insight into our campaigns. Now, it's all purely algorithmic, you put money in, and they promise to send you customers, with very little control from you. Something important I want to draw attention to though, there is obviously much to complain about with Google tracking visitors/consumers, but their tracking and "spying" on businesses using the platform is also incredibly deep. In order to advertise effectively with Google Ads, you now need to provide them with full sales figures from your checkout process. They want to feed the "algorithm" with your revenue numbers, not just from sales resulting from ad clicks, but all your sales. Google have amassed the most incredible insight into any and all businesses online. They know exactly how much you are making, how competitive you are compared to your competition, and how much they can squeeze out of you. They are in the position to design the "algorithm" to maximise their take as they can see your figures. So to finish, they operate a monopolistic exchange, as broker-dealer, clearing agency, and algorithmic trader, at the same time as having full visibility of your books. To me that should clearly be illegal.

Mistletoe 3y ago
Crypto is much more transparent than Google Ads due to the fact that most of them at least have a public blockchain. Is there any way to know if Google Ads purchasing isn’t a giant Ponzi of ads? Is there any way to verify they aren’t bidding up the auctions and that any of it is based on reality and competition at all? Crypto also has price discovery through shorting and selling. How would one short a Google Ad or sell one in their marketplace? There’s only one supplier and it’s “trust me bro” for the price discovery. I think it will be very funny if the past decade or so was not only based on a foundation of sand caused by zero interest rates, but also an ad ponzi from the tech giants. We sent our best and brightest not to the moon or to cure cancer, but to find new ways to keep that ad ponzi going. https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/meet-performance-max-the-blackest-black-box-of-all-google-ad-products/ https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/meet-performance-max-th...
- aurareturn 3y ago
  Holy cow. People are comparing Google to crypto exchanges now. Blockchains are public, yes. But the entities behind them are completely and utterly cryptic and centralized. Most of them operate out of Cayman Islands/Bahamas, etc. Comparing Google to crypto exchanges is insane.
  - throwawaypx 3y ago
    Google shares private data with NSA secretly and crypto does it publicly that's the diff i could think of
  - vasachi 3y ago
    Well, yeah. At least I can read the smart contract and audit transactions on the blockchain, if we are talking about decentralized exchanges. Google is faaaaaaaaaar less transparent. As in, not transparent at all.
    - aurareturn 3y ago
      Yes, being able to read smart contracts and audit transactions on the blockchain is how everyone knew FTX stealing customer funds from years ago. Oh wait. There are a huge number of ways crypto exchanges pull of scams without anyone noticing including straight up transferring customer funds to their own accounts, wash trading, trading against their own customers, having timely "maintenance" that lead to automatic liquidations, listing securities, taking bribes to list and promote a shitcoin, and the list goes on and on. FTX drained $8 billion of customer funds over its lifetime without anyone noticing on chain until its sudden collapse.
      - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
        > Yes, being able to read smart contracts and audit transactions on the blockchain is how everyone knew FTX stealing customer funds from years ago. Yes in fact! Anyone who looked into it knew. Maybe Wall Street and VCs were duped, but the crypto industry itself saw the train wreck coming from a mile away and distanced themselves from the start. That's why when the inevitable happened, the mainstream were pumping out articles about FTX disproportionately to its importance -- they were the ones that got played. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/the-collapse-of-ftx-was-inevitable https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/the-collapse-of-ftx-was... https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsSaving/status/1539605346469253120 https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsSaving/status/15396053464692531... > There are a huge number of ways crypto exchanges pull of scams There are a huge number of ways Google pulls off scams too. That's what this entire thread is about and the reason for the European Commission's complaint. Hence the comparison.
belter 3y ago
Imagine if a supermarket not only sold goods but also controlled all supply chains, decided on the prices of every product, and owned the only transportation system in town. All the while, it keeps track of every item you've ever bought or looked at, and how much you're willing to spend on groceries. The supermarket then uses this data to influence product pricing, availability, and transportation routes...And it's the only supermarket in town...
- kevinob11 3y ago
  I'm not pro Google, and I'm finally un-googling my life. But I don't think it is great to compare food to ads, one is required to live.
  - Ialdaboth 3y ago
    Not sure your analogy stands from a corporate standpoint.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Un-googling, I found out, is easier than un-Microsofting or un-Facebooking. MS because of Office and FB because of WhatsApp. Writing this from a yet to be un-googled Pixel phone...
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      Google Maps, YouTube, and gmail (forwarded to my fastmail) are all that I really have, but they're _really_ hard to replace. Apple Maps sucks, there's nothing near as good as YouTube, and I don't want to move hundreds of email accounts off of gmail.
      - trinsic2 3y ago
        > Apple Maps sucks Really? I found it more accurate in most cases. I wonder if there is a difference based on location. I am in California. Also maybe years ago it was not as good as Google, maybe it got better since then?
cageface 3y ago
Google deserves a lot of recent criticism but at the same time I think they provide an important counterbalance to Apple and Microsoft. I especially don’t want to see Android go away as the only competitor to iOS.
- prox 3y ago
  “Google is bad but don’t take away my counterbalance against Apple/MS?” , bit of an odd conclusion. Breaking up a monopoly is always good, it will give us consumers more choice. Gives them less power of politicians. Plus Android is open source so I think you got nothing to worry about.
  - angmarsbane 3y ago
    Breaking up monopolies creates more jobs too.
  - vietthan 3y ago
    Absolutely agree with your statement, but also want to add that [Google further guts the Android open source project](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36319991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36319991) is a thing.
    - prox 3y ago
      Wow, interesting. I guess all the more reason to reign in their behavior!
  - cageface 3y ago
    Their competitors are also engaged in a lot of market abuse for which they’ve mostly emerged unscathed.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Unless we punish all burglars, we shouldn't catch any burglars.
- 3y ago
prox 3y ago
This is where I stand, I operate some ad accounts but the amount of control and insight taken away with each update is really noticeable. Really interesting is that I actually get zero input on how much I pay on each day. You give a budget for the day but I don’t have a lot of control over it unless I micromanage the thing. It’s crazy and I hope the EU will go hard on Google. Edit So more about payments. It used to be I could just give a lump sum and let Google Ads play until there is no more budget. Not anymore, and -I don’t have a choice-. You can only use a bank account which you give Google Ads control over, and if you forget to set end dates, the thing will keep on rolling. For me it’s another dark pattern build in. For some big clients no big deal probably, I just want to point out there is not a lot of control or choice.
- kdeldycke 3y ago
  In a project I maintain on billing and payments[1], I had a link to Google Ads API. It was documenting how they had hard-limit budget, with notions like "capped actuals" and "monthly with rollover". The explanation was quite good so I keep it around to explain the concept, and why it was perfect for customers to avoid any surprises. Then the URL[2] 404'd and the API disappeared. I couldn't find any references to a "BillingCap". I wondered why[3]. Now it makes sense: they got rid of budgets as you explained above. Everything's seems to be obfuscated behind a quite opaque Proposals/Deals[4] data structure now. [1]: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-billing https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-billing [2]: https://developers.google.com/ad-manager/api/reference/v201911/CompanyService.BillingCap https://developers.google.com/ad-manager/api/reference/v2019... [3]: https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1625409998225285121 https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1625409998225285121 [4]: https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/apis/guides/marketplace/proposals https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/apis/guides/...
  - prox 3y ago
    Thank you, this has been insightful! Sometimes it’s hard to make a report that makes sense. For instance when having to deal with conversion lag I had to deal with this week. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347141 https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347141
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zpeti 3y ago
To expand your point further, in any given market that has online sales, if even one entity gives them CPA targets, they have a damn good idea how much a new customer is worth in that market. At that point, google has no motivation to ever sell you clicks or impressions below that value, as they already know how much each click they send is worth to you. Once you have two players in the market, you are basically haggling with google over 1-2-3% differences in your bidding, and google is switching you from position 1 and position 2 in the search results. On top of that, google sales people are basically employed to come to you and say: "Look, on this keyword your competitor is bidding 2% more than you. You should optimise for it and pay the same". This sounds like a good game until you realise if everyone is optimising properly, the only winner here is google. No one really has any leverage here except google, and they can squeeze everyone as hard as you are willing to squeeze your margins. I've seen multiple markets over the last few years where google ads are basically break even for the entire industry. This is absolutely insane, but it's what an aggregator does.
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Mistletoe 3y ago

Crypto is much more transparent than Google Ads due to the fact that most of them at least have a public blockchain. Is there any way to know if Google Ads purchasing isn’t a giant Ponzi of ads? Is there any way to verify they aren’t bidding up the auctions and that any of it is based on reality and competition at all? Crypto also has price discovery through shorting and selling. How would one short a Google Ad or sell one in their marketplace? There’s only one supplier and it’s “trust me bro” for the price discovery. I think it will be very funny if the past decade or so was not only based on a foundation of sand caused by zero interest rates, but also an ad ponzi from the tech giants. We sent our best and brightest not to the moon or to cure cancer, but to find new ways to keep that ad ponzi going. https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/meet-performance-max-the-blackest-black-box-of-all-google-ad-products/ https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/meet-performance-max-th...

aurareturn 3y ago
Holy cow. People are comparing Google to crypto exchanges now. Blockchains are public, yes. But the entities behind them are completely and utterly cryptic and centralized. Most of them operate out of Cayman Islands/Bahamas, etc. Comparing Google to crypto exchanges is insane.
- throwawaypx 3y ago
  Google shares private data with NSA secretly and crypto does it publicly that's the diff i could think of
- vasachi 3y ago
  Well, yeah. At least I can read the smart contract and audit transactions on the blockchain, if we are talking about decentralized exchanges. Google is faaaaaaaaaar less transparent. As in, not transparent at all.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    Yes, being able to read smart contracts and audit transactions on the blockchain is how everyone knew FTX stealing customer funds from years ago. Oh wait. There are a huge number of ways crypto exchanges pull of scams without anyone noticing including straight up transferring customer funds to their own accounts, wash trading, trading against their own customers, having timely "maintenance" that lead to automatic liquidations, listing securities, taking bribes to list and promote a shitcoin, and the list goes on and on. FTX drained $8 billion of customer funds over its lifetime without anyone noticing on chain until its sudden collapse.
    - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
      > Yes, being able to read smart contracts and audit transactions on the blockchain is how everyone knew FTX stealing customer funds from years ago. Yes in fact! Anyone who looked into it knew. Maybe Wall Street and VCs were duped, but the crypto industry itself saw the train wreck coming from a mile away and distanced themselves from the start. That's why when the inevitable happened, the mainstream were pumping out articles about FTX disproportionately to its importance -- they were the ones that got played. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/the-collapse-of-ftx-was-inevitable https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/the-collapse-of-ftx-was... https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsSaving/status/1539605346469253120 https://twitter.com/BitcoinIsSaving/status/15396053464692531... > There are a huge number of ways crypto exchanges pull of scams There are a huge number of ways Google pulls off scams too. That's what this entire thread is about and the reason for the European Commission's complaint. Hence the comparison.

belter 3y ago

Imagine if a supermarket not only sold goods but also controlled all supply chains, decided on the prices of every product, and owned the only transportation system in town. All the while, it keeps track of every item you've ever bought or looked at, and how much you're willing to spend on groceries. The supermarket then uses this data to influence product pricing, availability, and transportation routes...And it's the only supermarket in town...

kevinob11 3y ago
I'm not pro Google, and I'm finally un-googling my life. But I don't think it is great to compare food to ads, one is required to live.
- Ialdaboth 3y ago
  Not sure your analogy stands from a corporate standpoint.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Un-googling, I found out, is easier than un-Microsofting or un-Facebooking. MS because of Office and FB because of WhatsApp. Writing this from a yet to be un-googled Pixel phone...
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    Google Maps, YouTube, and gmail (forwarded to my fastmail) are all that I really have, but they're _really_ hard to replace. Apple Maps sucks, there's nothing near as good as YouTube, and I don't want to move hundreds of email accounts off of gmail.
    - trinsic2 3y ago
      > Apple Maps sucks Really? I found it more accurate in most cases. I wonder if there is a difference based on location. I am in California. Also maybe years ago it was not as good as Google, maybe it got better since then?

cageface 3y ago

Google deserves a lot of recent criticism but at the same time I think they provide an important counterbalance to Apple and Microsoft. I especially don’t want to see Android go away as the only competitor to iOS.

prox 3y ago
“Google is bad but don’t take away my counterbalance against Apple/MS?” , bit of an odd conclusion. Breaking up a monopoly is always good, it will give us consumers more choice. Gives them less power of politicians. Plus Android is open source so I think you got nothing to worry about.
- angmarsbane 3y ago
  Breaking up monopolies creates more jobs too.
- vietthan 3y ago
  Absolutely agree with your statement, but also want to add that [Google further guts the Android open source project](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36319991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36319991) is a thing.
  - prox 3y ago
    Wow, interesting. I guess all the more reason to reign in their behavior!
- cageface 3y ago
  Their competitors are also engaged in a lot of market abuse for which they’ve mostly emerged unscathed.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Unless we punish all burglars, we shouldn't catch any burglars.
3y ago

prox 3y ago

This is where I stand, I operate some ad accounts but the amount of control and insight taken away with each update is really noticeable. Really interesting is that I actually get zero input on how much I pay on each day. You give a budget for the day but I don’t have a lot of control over it unless I micromanage the thing. It’s crazy and I hope the EU will go hard on Google. Edit So more about payments. It used to be I could just give a lump sum and let Google Ads play until there is no more budget. Not anymore, and -I don’t have a choice-. You can only use a bank account which you give Google Ads control over, and if you forget to set end dates, the thing will keep on rolling. For me it’s another dark pattern build in. For some big clients no big deal probably, I just want to point out there is not a lot of control or choice.

kdeldycke 3y ago
In a project I maintain on billing and payments[1], I had a link to Google Ads API. It was documenting how they had hard-limit budget, with notions like "capped actuals" and "monthly with rollover". The explanation was quite good so I keep it around to explain the concept, and why it was perfect for customers to avoid any surprises. Then the URL[2] 404'd and the API disappeared. I couldn't find any references to a "BillingCap". I wondered why[3]. Now it makes sense: they got rid of budgets as you explained above. Everything's seems to be obfuscated behind a quite opaque Proposals/Deals[4] data structure now. [1]: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-billing https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-billing [2]: https://developers.google.com/ad-manager/api/reference/v201911/CompanyService.BillingCap https://developers.google.com/ad-manager/api/reference/v2019... [3]: https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1625409998225285121 https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1625409998225285121 [4]: https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/apis/guides/marketplace/proposals https://developers.google.com/authorized-buyers/apis/guides/...
- prox 3y ago
  Thank you, this has been insightful! Sometimes it’s hard to make a report that makes sense. For instance when having to deal with conversion lag I had to deal with this week. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347141 https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347141

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zpeti 3y ago

To expand your point further, in any given market that has online sales, if even one entity gives them CPA targets, they have a damn good idea how much a new customer is worth in that market. At that point, google has no motivation to ever sell you clicks or impressions below that value, as they already know how much each click they send is worth to you. Once you have two players in the market, you are basically haggling with google over 1-2-3% differences in your bidding, and google is switching you from position 1 and position 2 in the search results. On top of that, google sales people are basically employed to come to you and say: "Look, on this keyword your competitor is bidding 2% more than you. You should optimise for it and pay the same". This sounds like a good game until you realise if everyone is optimising properly, the only winner here is google. No one really has any leverage here except google, and they can squeeze everyone as hard as you are willing to squeeze your margins. I've seen multiple markets over the last few years where google ads are basically break even for the entire industry. This is absolutely insane, but it's what an aggregator does.

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